Orpheus

Accurséd hopes, accurséd fears, accursed pleasures. Long-suffering of all life! Changed consciousness at strife! No dancer treads the melancholy measures Unchanged for one short tune: no dancer flags, The hateful music luring them to move Weary and desolate ; And as the rhyme revolves and shrills and drags Their limbs insane they smile and call it love, Or, mocking, call it hatred: it is Fate. These grey eyes close to the deceitful dream Of death that will not take the tired for ever. Again, again, revolves the orb; the stream, The dew, the cloud, the ocean, and the river. My magic wand and cup and sword and spell. Languish, forgotten fears. The cup is filled with tears ; The sword is red with blood ; the pentacle Builded of flesh ; the wand its snake-head rears Swift energy: my labour is but lost. I, who thus thought all things to end, Findin the void no friend. I have but conjured up the fiend that most I trusted to abolish: all my toii Goes to give rest to life, and build anew These pinnacles of pain, Cupola upon cupola; the soil To comfort, to avail, to assoil with dew, To build the year again. 83